Sustainable Communities Bill

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. If the Government allow the Bill to go into Committee, I hope that we can rectify that omission. The Bill has been drawn in broad terms, but as it progresses we hope to ensure that there are no important omissions. As we have already heard, it is easy to identify the problems of community decline. We heard on the radio this morning that towns feel threatened by out-of-town shopping centres, with many high streets indistinguishable from one another. Such problems also affect rural areas. I represent a geographically isolated constituency, where the loss of a rural post office means not just the loss of that specific service, but that the £6 in every £10 taken out at the post office which would have been spent in the local community is spent elsewhere. People have to travel further for those services and might have no access to a car. In a rural area, there will probably be no adequate public transport either.